Dino Dice – Numbers & Dots (add & subtract)

Dino Dice is a great toy and has kept my two amused for long periods of time. On top of that it is educational and they are practicing their mental arithmetic without even noticing that they are really doing so.

*****

Initial Thoughts: Boys loved the look of the dinosaurs, I loved the look of the educational dice

We liked: Pretty much everything. The idea is that you role the dice which provides an addition or subtraction puzzle to solve, do so correctly and you win a dinosaur. My 5 year old, who is quite numbers orientated, thought this was the coolest thing ever and sits on his own rolling the dice and doing the sums very happily. It was a bit advanced for my 3 year old, but that isn’t a huge surprise and the game is really aimed at 4-6 years. The game comes in a bag, which could slip into a handbag which makes it easy to store and also to take with you on trips. The instructions suggest playing a game which has 2 levels a basic one for those just mastering addition and subtraction and a more complex one to keep the levels of interest up.

We weren’t keen: We don’t seem to fully go for the suggested games. It may be that my youngest is too young to really play it properly or that we just prefer to make our own rules up, but that hasn’t stopped us enjoying the toy. Like many small toys it is easy to lose a piece – one of the die went missing for a while here, but the dice are big enough to be found again with relative ease – ours was eventually located under the sofa. But, in order to make the dice big enough little hands might struggle to roll all three dice at once, but then again, nothing wrong with rolling one at a time.

Overall thoughts: Great toy and has kept my two amused for long periods of time. On top of that it is educational and they are practicing their mental arithmetic without even noticing that they are really doing so. I should add that my boys are quite numbers orientated anyway so a toy like this was always going to be right up their street, it may not hold quite the same attraction for those who prefer words.